(Originally posted April 4th, 2017)
Writing is hard.
There are few declarations I can make that, I believe, require so little evidentiary support. Ask a student of any age, at any level of their academic career, and they will tell you the same. Ask a teacher or professor. Ask an author.
The "right" expression of ideas into a word processor or onto the page can be excruciating. We get writer's block when we have the ideas before we have the words, and sometimes the opposite occurs, where the words come with such ease that we skip ideas that should be there. As we write we doubt the choice of word, the structure of a sentence, the organization of paragraphs. The more capable a writer becomes the more they fret: a misplaced comma can change the sentence, the wrong connotation can change tone, some syntactic repetition can breed boredom.
With all of the things working against them, seeing developing writers - my students - excel is something of a thrill. I must temper my enthusiasm, however; a teacher learns that work that appears to be too good certainly may be, which is where doubt sets in (and a hunt for evidence of plagiarism begins). But when I cannot find any such evidence and that doubt is alleviated, the excitement returns. There is a pride at imagining that I had even a small hand in helping to make excellence happen, but mostly I'm just excited to witness it.
The essay below is one such example of excellent writing. After reading it over closely and checking for any evidence of plagiarism (and finding none), I shared it with a couple other teachers, speaking excitedly about its quality. This is by no means a perfect essay, but its errors are so slight and its successes so significant that I feel it should be examined further as an exemplar of what academic high school writing should look like. And despite this being the work of a ninth grade student, my juniors and seniors can learn from it too.
The essay follows in its entirety below, unedited by myself or my student from its original turned-in state. On the right hand column (in bold) are my comments, an annotated look at what works so well and what could be improved.
The title gets the job done and nothing more. It (unfortunately) doesn't reveal the thoughtfullness of the essay.
Tim Burton’s Cinematic Style
The introductory paragraph is effective because it sets out to do a specific job and does it. That job is to identify films by Burton that use specific techniques to create a unifying stylistic effect. It does all of this. There is some fluff (the 1st and 3rd sentences), inexact word choices ("enticing," "tantalizing"), faulty parallelism (last sentence) and mis-titling ("Scissorhands" should be one word), but this is still a simple, to-the-point intro that lays the groundwork (and a functional thesis — the last sentence) for what is to come, providing unity and expectation for the reader.
Tim Burton is a cinematic director who has created some of the greatest and most relatable classics. His work has resulted in a variety of enticing movies such as Edward Scissor Hands, Charlie & The Chocolate Factory, and Big Fish. Throughout all of his films Burton remains unique, using a style that’s all his own. This is more clearly seen in Edward Scissor Hands and Charlie & The Chocolate Factory than in Big Fish, but you can still make out his style in parts of Big Fish as well. His unique, tantalizing style features his specific use of lighting, camera angles, and sound to effectively capture human emotions, conflict and a relatable story.
Burton uses side lighting to create ominous foreboding moods that give the audience a sense of uneasiness or worry. First in Edward Scissor Hands Jim is seen driving away leaving Edward to the cops. While Kim pleads that Jim go back, Jim simply continues driving with an angry expression on his shadowy face, created from side lighting. This usage of lighting guides the audience into seeing Jim’s ill feelings for Edward and foreshadows even further conflict to come between the two, eliciting worry by the audience for the characters. In Charlie & The Chocolate Factory there is a scene in which thieves are handing stolen recipes to one another. The unethical criminal’s face is shown with side lighting from a street lamp. The lighting creates a shadow on the side of his face which creates an uneasy feeling deep within the audience’s stomach. Then in Big Fish side lighting is used on Edward Bloom’s face in almost every scene in which he is bed ridden and sick. This particular usage of side lighting is especially foreboding because it makes the audience consider his inevitable death which is soon to come. These uses of side lighting all have the same overall affect, to make the audience worry and feel concern for the characters or the story itself.
The opening sentence here is great, introducing the first concept from the thesis (lighting) and making a clear statement that establishes the body paragraph's central argument. To support its argument, an example from each of the above films is used, and every time an effective organization is followed: (1) identify the film and scene in general; (2) describe the action or imagery of the scene with a connection to the technique; (3) explain the usage with analytic commentary that considers the effect usage has on audience. The author's diction to describe the relationship between audience and director is thoughtful and varied ("guides," "creates," "makes...consider"). At the end, the paragraph notes the similarity in usages and supports the original argument of the essay's thesis (the capturing of human emotion and conflict, and the relatability with audience). The error in titling appears again (and will throughout the essay), while synonymia (ominous & foreboding are synonyms), minor comma errors (which are present throughout the essay) and word errors ("bed ridden" and effect/affect) may distract, but these cannot impair what is an effective first body paragraph.
Burton not only is a master of lighting, but camera angles as well. Camera angles may not sound very important, but they can actually have quite large effects. Large in particular because Burton uses lots of low angles in all three movies to make things seem large as well as dangerous and sinister. First, in Edward Scissor Hands low angles are used to show the mansion in which Edward resides. This low angle of the camera makes the audience feel as if they are looking upwards at the huge building themselves. The low angle makes the mansion not only seem big, but also unwelcoming and dangerous. In reality however, there is nothing even slightly malicious inside, and Edward is the most innocent welcoming character throughout the movie. This same pattern is seen in the other two movies as well. In Charlie & The Chocolate Factory the amazingly vast factory is seen through a low angle, giving it a dark menacing atmosphere, when in truth it’s the most spectacular fantasy world a child could ever hope to enter; it’s filled with color, candy, and life. Then in Big Fish in the beginning of the movie Edward Bloom is sent to deal with giant. When the giant comes out of his cave he first is shown with low angle shots to try to make him appear even bigger and menacing. You soon find out he’s a normal friendly person who just happens to be big. Burton uses low angles to give the initial impression of sinister danger, but in reality he allows the audience to confront their preconceived notions of the unknown or perhaps prejudices.
This transition is great. It make a specific reference to the topic of the previous paragraph (lighting) and introduces the topic of the current (camera angles), which is the second item in the essay's thesis. The second sentence may not add much and the third starts with a clunk ("Large in particular"), but the student clearly makes an argument about camera angles that will be the focus of the paragraph. Once again we see the same organization for evidence and support, and the commentary is careful to be specific in descriptions of scenes and the meaning to be found therein. All of this is effective. This type of exact replication of organization can bore a reader, as can continuing to formulaically include evidence of each film in the same order, but for the most part the commentary is enough that it maintains the reader's interest. The use of "first" as a transition into the first piece of evidence again is unnecessary and maybe even distractingly basic, but the transition from Scissorhands to the other two films ("This same pattern is seen in the other two movies as well") demonstrates the author's focus on directorial consistency and style. The second person "you" at the end creates some informality, but this paragraph is as effective as the first, with thoughtful commentary ( "not even slightly malicious inside"), and the semicolon in the commentary for Chocolate Factory is perfect - I really, really liked how it emphasized and closed the analysis for that film's camera usage.
The last technique Burton’s style features is Burton’s use of music. In both Edward Scissor Hands and Charlie & The Chocolate Factory Burton uses very similar music in both movies’ beginning credits. He uses music that sounds eerie, mysterious, and sad in the case of Edward Scissor Hands or exciting in the case of Charlie & The Chocolate Factory. In either case the music is used to pique the audience’s curiosity and draw them in to the story, not only that, it foreshadows the tone of the rest of the movie. The sad lonely parts of the music in Edward Scissor Hands creates an expectancy in the back of the audience’s mind for grief and exile, which is later fulfilled. The same musical technique is done in Charlie & The Chocolate Factory but with an expectation for excitement which is fulfilled by the amazingness of the inside of the factory. Burton uses music for both enticement and foreshadowing and to capture the audience’s heart.
The transition is simple and gets the job done well enough, although it doesn't show the relationship between the previous and current techniques like the last transition did. This paragraph thankfully breaks up the organization of the support, opening with evidence and commentary about two films and continuing that focus throughout. Big Fish is not mentioned, and this is fine! The author is focusing on what is consistent, and showing two of three films demonstrates this consistency well enough. The commentary is again solid, although the descriptions of the music lean heavy of inference; there is little actual description of the sound of the music (this is a difficult task, however). The best part of this is the discussion of the music in Edward Scissorhands, which the author notes creates an expectation "for grief and exile, which is later fulfilled." This goes beyond describing style but makes a connection between style and plot development, a significant addition. The concluding sentence gets the job done, but the polysyndeton feels out of place.
Burton’s unique style is characterized by his use of lighting, camera angles, and music. His style plays on different human emotions and conflicts, the innate human desire for acceptance, the struggle of poverty, fear, sadness, happiness, and pain. All these every day feelings and common problems make the characters feel relatable, real. This makes the audience not only enjoy his films, but care about them, the characters, the conflicts, the conclusions. Burton’s style is extremely effective, not only does the audience want to finish the movie, but they also learn something about themselves. Tim Burton is a great and successful director because of his unique style and because of his ability to allow us to take a deeper look at ourselves.
The conclusion opens with a clear, descriptive statement of Burton's style, and "characterized" is absolutely the right verb here. The second sentence does something risky, but I think it pays off; it opens by presenting the category "human emotions and conflicts" and then begins to list examples, beginning with a long noun phrase ("the innate human desire for acceptance"), followed with a shorter phrase, and then closed with a series of single words. While this arrangement is absolutely an example of faulty parallelism, the change from longer items to shorter items works in my opinion - it feels like a distillation of complex human experience into more pointed, base emotions. The following sentence also takes a risk by omitting a conjunction with "relatable, real." This choice of asyndeton makes "real" especially punchy, not only building onto "relatable" but emphasizing it. Another example of asyndeton follows, and while I like the sentence, I think at this point the "items in a series" structure is wearing thin, given that this is the fourth sentence in this paragraph to use it. As with some of the other paragraphs, there is a comma error here (a comma splice). The concluding sentence includes a bit of fluff ("great and successful director"), but it closes with an especially thoughtful idea, that Burton's style allows audiences to be self-reflective, a concept that makes the entire exploration of Burton as a focus seem to have legitimate substance.
Okay. Whew!
I hope that you enjoyed looking through this essay as much as I did, and more to the point, I hope you found something in there to learn from. There are absolutely things to improve on here, from grammatical errors to structural weaknesses, but the successes of the essay outweigh these.
Was there anything in this essay that you particularly enjoyed, or do you have questions about any of my comments? Or are you the author wishing to take credit (you certainly can)? Leave a comment below if so.